The billionaire playboy Tony Stark is set to get the “Dublin treatment”, as the Irish laureate of children’s books, Eoin Colfer, revealed he will be taking the superhero to the Emerald Isle in a new novel.

Publisher Marvel promised that Colfer, the author of the bestselling Artemis Fowl series about a 12-year-old criminal mastermind, would write an “electrifying new take” on the character played by Robert Downey Jr in film adaptations, “in a towering tale of armour and adventure”.

The young adult novel will be published in autumn 2016. “Excited is an understatement,” wrote Colfer on his Facebook page, also providing an image of himself wearing Stark’s Iron Man suit.

The author, who published a sequel to Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, And Another Thing …, in 2009, told the Anton Savage show on Today FM on Wednesday that his novel would see Iron Man visiting Ireland, where he was not likely to be greeted with the hero worship he receives in America.

“I think Irish people’s attitude towards superheroes will be a little bit like their attitudes towards famous people and rock stars in general. They’re highly sceptical, so he’s not going to get the adulation that he would get in America. It would be like ‘Ah here … would you look at yer man in the suit of armour’,” he said.

“He is going to come over here and expect the same kind of treatment he gets in the States, but he is going to get the Dublin treatment.”

Colfer added that he “might introduce an Irish girl” into the story. “I don’t know about a love interest, but definitely someone who can give as good as she gets with regards the Stark banter, so I think a Dublin girl will be well able for Tony,” he said.

The Iron Man novel was one of five new young adult titles announced by Marvel, with Margaret Stohl to write a new Black Widow story, Black Widow: Red Vengeance!, Tom Angleberger to reveal the new adventures of Guardians of the Galaxy characters Groot and Rocket Raccoon in Stranded on Planet Strip Mall, and the Newbery award-winning Shannon Hale and her husband Dean Hale to release both a new Squirrel Girl novel, and a new Captain Marvel adventure starring Carol Danvers.